NEW YORK, November 5. /TASS/. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on the European Union to use an upcoming informal summit in Dublin to discuss who should represent the bloc in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine conflict, Bloomberg reported, citing a letter from the Italian leader.
Meloni addressed the letter to European Council President Antonio Costa, pointing out that the current fragmented approach - involving multiple negotiators and varying formats to articulate the bloc’s interests - undermines the EU's credibility.
"What I continue to call for is that a decision be made once and for all as to who sits at the negotiating table representing the European Union, and with what mandate," she wrote.
The informal European Council summit is scheduled to take place in Dublin on November 13, with its official agenda dedicated to artificial intelligence.
On October 28, Politico reported, citing sources, that several European nations reacted negatively to an initiative by Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store to hold a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They argued that separate talks by individual states undermine Europe’s unified voice. An unnamed Italian official suggested that national initiatives and constantly shifting diplomatic formats risk further weakening Europe’s influence, noting that the phone call highlighted the EU's inability to reach a consensus on who should represent its interests in peace negotiations.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted at a press conference following the first day of the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Atlanta that Europeans are seeking to "squeeze" into the Ukrainian settlement process but the question is what they can bring as added value.
Lavrov stressed that the Europeans' track record as "guarantors" cannot be ignored, pointing to the collapse of the Minsk agreements and the February 2014 deal between then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition.